The Korean Word For Butterfly


Book Description

Set against the backdrop of the 2002 World Cup and rising anti-American sentiment due to a deadly accident involving two young Korean girls and a U.S. tank, The Korean Word For Butterfly is told from three alternating points-of-view: Billie, the young wanna-be poet looking for adventure with her boyfriend who soon finds herself questioning her decision to travel so far from the comforts of American life; Moon, the ex K-pop band manager who now works at the English school struggling to maintain his sobriety in hopes of getting his family back; And Yun-ji , a secretary at the school whose new feelings of resentment toward Americans may lead her to do something she never would have imagined possible. The Korean Word For Butterfly is a story about the choices we make and why we make them. It is a story, ultimately, about the power of love and redemption. *Warning: This book deals with the following themes and may not be suitable for those preferring a "light" read: racism, abortion, alcoholism, and child abuse




The Roadrunner Cafe


Book Description

"Zerndt's jewel-like tale of a family grieving after the father's suicide strikes every note right. The novel deserves rich praise and many readers." - from Publisher's Weekly's The BookLife Prize in Fiction "Every character has his or her particular preoccupations and Zerndt handles them with aplomb, using his large cast to shine varied lights on the themes of family, grieving, and hope after loss." - Kirkus Reviews One year after the suicide, Carson Long still hates his father. He hates him for abandoning his sister, Georgie, and for turning his mother into a young widow. And he hates his father for leaving behind his stupid tree. Four of them are planted outside the restaurant, one for each family member. That is until Carson's mother hires a local landscaper to remove them in the middle of the night. This seemingly unremarkable act soon sets in motion of series of events that leaves more than just young Carson groping in the dark for answers. Set in a small Colorado ski town, The Roadrunner Café is a unique novel told from multiple points of view about loss and the lengths some will go to heal the human heart.




Jerkwater


Book Description

Set in Mercer, Wisconsin, where tensions over Native American fishing rights are escalating, JERKWATER is told from three alternating points-of-view: Shawna Reynolds, a young Ojibwa woman who doesn’t much care for white people to begin with, and who is quickly being pulled in a direction she may no longer have a desire to resist; Kay O’Brien, Shawna’s 64-year-old, usually drunk, neighbor who is still grieving the loss of her husband; And Kay’s son, Douglas, who now finds himself in charge of running the family’s auto repair shop while dealing with his own feelings of guilt. JERKWATER is a story about the racial tensions churning just beneath the surface of what often appears to be placid, everyday American life.




Iron Butterfly, The


Book Description

Choon-Ok Harmon was born soon after the Korean War, when South Korea was experiencing extreme poverty. This memoir describes the hardships she tried to overcome to achieve a better life. She moves to the U.S. and, through patience and perseverance, pursues her dream of becoming a martial artist. Harmon is now the highest ranking woman in the Korean martial art system of Kuk Sool Won.




Symbolism in Korean Ink Brush Painting


Book Description

With more than 200 colour plates, and for the first time available as a study in English, this volume explores the vast heritage of Korean ink brush painting, providing a rich panorama of information that stretches across the entire spectrum of Korean art – including painting, pottery, calligraphy and literature, which will have wide appeal, not least to art lovers and students of Korean Studies. Part I presents the material in essay form; Part II, which uses a dictionary format, summarizes the information in Part I and highlights the hidden messages and symbolism inherent in literati ink brush painting in Korea. When China and Japan opened up to outside influence in the nineteenth century, Korea maintained a closed-door policy, becoming known as the ‘hermit kingdom’, only to be swallowed up in the struggle for hegemony between the Great Powers. Annexation by Japan in 1910 threatened Korea’s language and culture with extinction. Liberation in 1945 was followed by the tragedy of the Korean War in 1950. In the period of reconstruction after the Korean War, artists and scholars faced the task of retrieving Korea’s endangered cultural tradition. Ink brush painting is a unique part of this tradition; its history stretches back through the Choson dynasty when Chinese influences were assimilated and absorbed and made into Korea’s distinctive tradition.




Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly


Book Description

Renowned Korean American modern-dance choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess shares his deeply personal hyphenated world and how his multifaceted background drives his prolific art-making in Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly. The memoir traces how his choreographic aesthetic, based on the fluency of dance and the visual arts, was informed by his early years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This insightful journey delves into an artist's process that is inspired by the intersection of varying cultural perspectives, stories, and experiences. Candid and intelligent, Burgess gives readers the opportunity to experience up close the passion for art and dance that has informed his life.




The Butterfly Effect


Book Description

A self-obsessed Calcutta detective who goes by his last name `Kar’, an enigmatic internet cafe hostess in Seoul, and a hotshot geneticist labouring away on a top-secret corporate project. These are just a few pieces in the puzzle that need to be put together to explain a world sucked into the whirlpool of the `butterfly effect’. In the decaying capital city of a near-future Darkland, which covers large swathes of Asia, Captain Old – an off-duty policeman – receives news that might help to unravel the roots of a scourge that has ravaged the continent. As stories coalesce into stories – welding past, present and future together – will a macabre death in a small English town or the disappearance of Indian tourists in Korea, help to blow away the dusts of time? From utopian communities of Asia to the prison camps of Pyongyang and from the gene labs of Europe to the violent streets of Darkland – riven by civil war, infested by genetically engineered fighters – this time-travelling novel crosses continents, weaving mystery, adventure and romance, gradually fixing its gaze on the sway of the unpredictable over our lives.




The Korean Language


Book Description

This book describes the structure and history of the Korean language, ranging from its cultural and sociological setting, writing system, and modern dialects, to how Koreans themselves view their language and its role in society. An accessible, comprehensive source of information on the Korean language, Lee and Ramsey's work is an important resource for all those interested in Korean history and culture, offering information not readily available elsewhere in the English-language literature.




Gently Grieving


Book Description